We Are Not Ninjas
by redhead7675
Summary: Okay, so you know all the cheesy stupid mary-sue SI OC insert fics where people get transported to the Naruto world? Well, as it turns out, they might not be as 'stupid' as we originally thought... still pretty cheesy, though. All we wanted to do was go to Megacon.
1. Swirlies And Car Crashes

I have a theory.

That if something that was once fiction gains enough of a following, it has a chance to become a new reality.

"Kind of like in Percy Jackson. You know, how they explain the Gods' presence as being powered by their followers? That if a lot of people believe in and worship in, they get stronger, but fade if they're forgotten."

"Thank you, Lexi, for interrupting me. But yah, exactly like that."

"Sorry. First thing that popped into my head. Continue."

Anyways, back to the theory: this can't happen in any sort of format, though there are specific requirements for another reality or universe to be created. For this to happen the creator of a work of fiction must create a scenario for one of his or her characters to somehow find their way to our universe.

"Wait, uh, wouldn't the dimension have to exist before the character can poke back into our world? … I still don't really get your theory."

"As I said before there are specific 'requirements' plural so shuosh."

"Sorry."

The next requirement is not so much a prerequisite as an inter-dimensional law of space-time because space-time is weird in the way that it has no point of origin if it will exist at any point that 'space' will already exist. The thing is that all space is in sync, but is separated by dimensional boundaries so that the different physics in different dimensions do not interfere with each other. Time, however, is … it has many … layers, and different dimensions' 'timelines' _almost_ never sync together, but when they do, that's when inter-dimensional boundaries blur and become breakable.

"Are you even reading what you're writing? We've probably lost whoever's reading this… Keep in mind that all of Lily's theories are completely hypothetical. She likes things to make sense."

"She can get rather jittery if they don't."

"…"

"… Shane's right. And you _do_ go pretty far to explain the unexplainable."

"IT'S ONE OF MY SPECIAL TALENTS!"

"Okay, okay. Jeesh. You know this would be a lot easier if you just accepted that we're in the Naruto world and been done with it. You still have panic attacks and we've been here for like-"

" _Shut up, Lexi!_... Don't tell them that!"

"We're writing everything down! They're going to know anyways!"

"Not that it isn't fun watching you two bicker about Lily's mental health, but I really think we should just get to the point now."

"What is the point, anyway? I mean like where do we start? Before the con? In the car? I mean, we're sort of writing this like a fic, right? It might be really sudden if we just-"

"Lexi, before the con was just us arguing with your parents about whether or not you could go. That would make us seem even more mary-sue. We should start with my poor car. Rest its vehicular soul in peace…"

"That's like an hour long drive though, Lily. Before or after the whole… hitting the 'not-cosplayer' thing?"

"Just before it."

"Don't I have that written in one of these…?"

 **…**

"I still can't believe that I'm finally going to Megacon!" Lexi squealed, practically vibrating from sheer excitement. For the hundredth time she opened the plastic bag at her feet to make sure all the pieces of her Shippuden Neji Hyuuga cosplay were still there, pawing through the once carefully folded costume clothes.

"I know, right! Though, I was pretty surprised that your dad and your stepmom are letting you go without an 'adult.'" Lily said, the word 'adult' tinged with sarcasm, using one hand to make air quotation marks whilst keeping the other hand on the wheel. Although she'd probably meant it like a joke, her lips curled down with contempt.

"What _I_ don't understand is why they're letting _you_ drive us there," Shane remarked idly from the backseat of the Honda Accord. Lexi couldn't see his face; she was still underneath the glove department, but she assumed he was wearing an amused smirk. At her left, Lily instantly bristled.

"Screw you, Shane! I'm a great driver! I'm just-… a _newer_ driver!" Lily snapped out as she turned slightly to berate her friend, glaring at him briefly. They swerved slightly, but Lexi knew there was no one else on the road at this time of day, so she wasn't too concerned. "I-"

Lexi glanced up from her bag, satisfied she hadn't lost anything in the last ten minutes, and pulled her head out back over the dash just in time to see the bright orange face of- _someonerightinfrontofthecarahhhhh!_

 _"_ _Lily look out!"_ she screamed from the passenger seat as she flung her hands up, pointing towards the road and the man less than half a foot away from them.

Lily slammed her foot on the brakes hard without looking, causing the car to lurch forward violently. Lexi jerked, and she could hear the car horn blare as Lily was thrown into it. Whatever it was Lily had seen hit the car anyway despite the brake with a dull _thud_ that shook the entire car.

After the small car finally skidded to a complete stop and quit making roadkill sounds, they all looked at each other with wide eyes for a few thudding heartbeats before Lily turned her head back to the road very slowly, wincing. _"Holy fuck_ did I just kill something?!"

"I swear to God there was a person! You just hit a person! There was a person on the road and you _hit him!"_ Lexi cried, craning her neck to try and see over the front of the car. She couldn't see anything over the hood of the car, which was really bad, because that meant that whoever or whatever they'd hit was _underneath_ it.

"Okay, okay, calm down," Lily said a little too loudly. "We're not sure if it's- uh, he… maybe she- isn't dead yet. Oh Lord."

"You just hit someone with your car going seventy miles an hour." Shane said dryly. "I'm pretty sure they at least need an ambulance."

"Okay, everybody out of the car! Let's go help with this son of a bitch."

"Lily! _You_ hit _him!"_ Lexi was already wrenching the passenger side door open. "God, I hope we didn't just break your car and kill someone!" Her face paled as when she noticed a hand underneath where she was about to put her foot. "Ohmygod, are you okay?!"

All three teens scrambled out of the car. Lexi grabbed her purple drawstring bag with her tablet and writing journals inside. Lily did the same, reaching behind the seat for her red old school backpack she'd emptied of school supplies in favor of Megacon-supplies. It wasn't like she needed her school supplies anyway- she was eighteen. Shane took nothing, not that he'd brought anything aside from his cosplay...

It was just past noon, and the Florida sun beat down on their shoulders as they slammed the car doors shut, making the pavement glitter. All around them was stretches of empty road- it really was strange that the intersection was nearly empty, but it almost always was, which was why they'd taken this road in the first place to avoid the traffic.

What had this guy been doing out here, anyway? Had he been walking down the interstate on foot? Was he homeless? Had his car broken down and he'd been flagging for help, and they'd all just been too preoccupied to see him? But Lily had only looked away for a second on a long road; wouldn't she have seen him way before hitting him?

"I told you," Shane said in a deadpan voice, nudging the 'body' with his foot. Whoever it was was lying facedown on the pavement, halfway underneath the metallic green Honda. His hair was black, sticking up slightly in the back where an elastic looking black band stuck tight against his scalp.

Okay, so she hadn't been _completely_ crazy. His face _was_ orange- or at least his mask was. She recognized it instantly- Tobito's orange swirl mask. He was wearing an Akatsuki cloak as well, from what she could see, one of his shoulders swirled with a red cloud. He was wearing long black sleeves.

They weren't really all that far from Megacon. It was another cosplayer. Had to be.

He was on the other side of the tire, Lexi realized, feeling panic spark. Which meant they had completely utterly entirely actually _run him over!_ She covered her mouth with her hands, trying not to freak out. Was he dead? Crippled? Had they paralyzed him? He wasn't moving at all. Oh god, he was probably-

Suddenly the person's hand shot out, grabbing Shane's ankle hard.

"Gah!" Shane garbled in a brief bout of shock, trying to pull away just as Lily came around the side of the car. She sighed in obvious relief, inspecting the nearly-dead-looking-Tobito-cosplayer.

"Thank God you're not dead. I was _not_ gonna have that on my record…" Lily frowned. "I still hit you, though… oh well. Still better than being dead."

"Jutsu wa dono yōna koreha?" the man demanded, lifting his head. He sounded bewildered but at the same time intentionally lowered his voice, like he was trying to sound intimidating. Lexi would bet that underneath his mask, his eyes were probably narrowed. "Kimi was daredai?!"

"He said jutsu?" Lexi said. "Uh…"

To her complete surprise, Shane asked, "Anata wa eigo o hanasemasu ka?" in a much calmer tone.

"For once your complete weeaboo transformation has served us good," Lily said with satisfaction. Which in Lexi's opinion was slightly hypocritical, given they were all heading to Megacon with anime cosplays in the car ready to be changed into as soon as they got to the hotel they were staying at.

"Eigo?" The man's voice was suspicious. For some reason- God, Lexi thought, please don't let him be super seriously injured- he hadn't yet tried to get out from under their car. "Anata no akusento wa okashīdesu. Koko wa doko desuka?"

"Guess not." Shane shrugged. "He said something, then asked where he was. I think you actually knocked something loose in there." He gestured to his head.

Lily swore. Then in broken Japanese, she said, "Uhm… An-ata wa… yaku arimase-uh, arimasu… How far would you say we are from Orlando? This road is kinda remote."

"I don't know," Shane said. "About forty five minutes away." "Orlando shijūgo… uh, hana-rete kara sūbun."

"I'm lost," Lexi muttered miserably. She noticed offhandedly that whoever it was was wearing sharingan contacts; she could see it through the hole whenever his eye flicked to hers. Man, they'd probably permanently damaged his corneas! "Should we get him out from underneath the car? Or maybe not. I don't think you're supposed to move them…"

"He has complete movement in his limbs," Lily pointed out. "His neck should be fine." She paused, then grimaced. "Ooh, I forgot about his spine, though... shitballs. That could still be a problem..."

"He's cosplaying Obito on his way to Megacon and has no idea where he is!" she protested, hands flailing. Did she call the police? Gah, they would probably all be arrested for attempted manslaughter or something. How was she going to explain this to her _parents?_ "I think-"

"Nani?" The man's voice hissed, suddenly low and threatening. His general confused air iced over instantly, and his fingers dug into Shane's pant leg. They all three stiffened. "Dono yō ni watashi no namae o shitte imasu ka?"

"Your- name?" Shane asked, slightly unnerved. He paused. "Ah, he can't understand me. Hold on, let me see if I can remember how to... Watashitachi wa… uh… anata no namay o, shirimasin. Daijōbudesaka?"

"What do you mean, his name?" Lexi asked nervously. "Is he okay?"

Shane shook his head. "He's saying we know his name."

The man loosed another long stream of Japanese. He sounded kind of angry and demanding, but she couldn't understand anything he was saying, occasionally recognizing but not identifying various words or phrases from Subbed anime. Lexi only really caught one word- _shinobi._

What was with this guy? Did he have amnesia? Was he only remembering whatever it was he'd rehearsed for the con? Crap, it was worse than she'd thought, they'd probably given him brain damage. Come to think of it, his torso underneath the car was probably crushed, it'd been _run over by Lily's car tire._

"Okay, well, whatever he's saying, he doesn't sound very friendly. I'm gonna call 911 now." Lily said, narrowing her eyes and edging closer to her. She started to pull out her phone.

"Wait, he's moving," Lexi blurted. And he _was_ moving- the _car._ Suddenly, with a seemingly casual shrug of the Tobito cosplayer's Akatsuki-cloaked arm, the car flipped over and onto its roof on the other side of the road. It didn't roll, either, it _flew into the air,_ probably five or ten feet _above their heads._ Metal shrieked, the sound of broken glass cutting the air. Instinctively Lexi covered her face and ducked.

"Ohh, shit." Lily said dumbly.

For a second, Lexi thought, _Obito?!_ But that was ridiculous. There went her stupid brain again, coming up with fairytail plots. Her dad was right, she was losing her grasp on reality, she wanted it to be true so much she's was warping everything in her head. Idiot.

Ridiculous.

... But so was a _person that could flip a car with one arm!_

Shane, at this point, looked more like a ghost than a person. That was probably because the man had flipped the car lying down and still hadn't let go of his ankle. he tried to pull away but the masked man's hand didn't even _twitch,_ it was like Shane was stuck in a concrete statue.

"Ah!" Lily yelped and stepped forward instinctively, bringing the heel of her combat boot into the side of his hand.

It went through his wrist, slivers away from Shane's foot.

And suddenly Shane was free, stumbling backwards.

Lily, just as surprised, followed suite, ignoring the fact that her shoe had just gone through his hand without actually injuring it and grabbing for both of their wrists and pulling them away, not that Lexi needed any additional encouragement. She skittered back, nearly tripping over her own two feet in an attempt to escape.

"Lily," she murmured, when there was a bit of distance between them and the Tobito man, partially terrified and partially really, _really_ excited- "You don't think?"

"No, no I don't think. This isn't happening, and I am hallucinating." her friend said firmly. "I finally lost it. It was only a matter of time. It makes sense. I've always been a little bit wonky. Shane was right."

"If we weren't about to die, I would laugh that you actually admitted that," Shane said weakly.

"Watashi wa, anata ga watashi no namae o shitte iru no ka wakarimasen. Osoraku madara wa ōku o shiru koto ga dekimasu." He inclined his head slightly. Lexi flinched like she'd been tasered. "Watashi wa sore wa watashi ga watashi no kyūkawotoru jikanda to omoimasu."

"I should've studied Japanese," Lexi squeaked. "But I'm pretty sure that guy just said _Madara._ Wait! Hold on a-"

The air around him seemed to shimmer. _Kamui,_ she realized as his body started to distort into what looked like colorful heat waves. _That looks like Kakashi's kamui!_

Okay. So she was losing her mind. There was no way that was actually Obito. There was no way that he was kamui-ing himself into another dimension, and no way that Lily had just floored him with her car. No way.

But. Just by chance that it was.

If she followed him and her brain wasn't playing tricks on her, then logically that meant he was using that dimension-thing he'd used in the war, so he would probably try to kill her when they stopped. On the other hand, if she didn't, it would haunt her for the rest of eternity. Especially if the guy disappeared. Because then she would have missed her probably only chance to... what?

Go to the Naruto-verse? Was she _insane?!_

The swirl had already dominated most of his body; only his torso was clear now. If she was going to do something, she was going to have to do it now, before he disappeared completely and left them with a wrecked car and absolutely no evidence that they'd even hit anyone at all. At this point any little dint he'd left was definitely _hammered out._

Under pressure, Lexi usually made good decisions.

When it came to Naruto, though, it was just kind of impossible to look back.

"Wait!" she yelled again and dashed forward, hand outstretched. Behind her Lily screeched something probably offensive, but she couldn't really hear over her own blood rushing through her ears. The only reason she'd probably broken her friend's grip was because she totally most likely _hadn't_ expected her to full-out run towards a vanishing powerhouse that'd just flipped a car because they'd somehow pissed him off.

Out of all the things she'd ever questioned, what kamui felt like surprisingly wasn't ever one of them.

…

Lily didn't really know exactly what was happening to her friend. Okay, so she was a little blurry and kind of swirly, but she could still- _see_ her, and therefore all instincts dictated to get her _out._

"Lexi _whatthefuckareyoudoinggetback!"_

She'd always known that she was protective to a fault, but never had it occurred to her that it would suck her into this sort of situation.

Literally.

…

Shane watched as both Lexi _and_ Lily purposely jumped into kamui.

Of course he recognized kamui; he wasn't a complete idiot. He just figured that all three of them were somehow simultaneously having heat strokes and lucid dreams at the same time. They'd been thinking too much about Naruto; Lexi hadn't stopped talking about it since the car ride started a half hour ago, and now it was manifesting.

It made more sense than the alternative, anyway.

Lily probably hadn't thought through the fact that touching the swirly would do the exact same thing as it did to Lexi, but still, he found it kind of concerning that she looked so shocked. They were both slowly vanishing into thin Obito-dressed man was nearly gone, just a dot the size of Shane's head.

Considering that he really had nothing better to do, his phone was in Lily's crushed car, he had no way of getting all the way back to Melbourne, and he was probably hallucinating anyway, Shane thought: _The hell with it._

He walked casually up to the receding swirl, studying the way his friend's bodies twisted and their colors distorted.

What a strange sentence, he thought for a second before the world twisted, reaching out a hand to poke Lily's thigh, which was kind of meshed with her face at this point.

 **...**

Today really just wasn't Obito's day.

Okay, so maybe Madara-sensei had warned him against practicing kamui without guidance, and maybe he'd sort of forgotten that it was capable of transporting people to different dimensions, and maybe it was kind of his fault that he'd ended up in a strange world and been blindsided by some giant jutsu like a metal rock slamming into his side.

He'd almost been pancaked flat by that wheel. That sure as hell hadn't been a wagon wheel of any kind; it'd been going so fast he'd barely had time to phase his lower body out of the way before it crushed his insides to jelly. Again.

Kami really must have had something against him.

Not to mention that they'd known his _name!_ Even knowing his alias Tobi would have been strange in another entire freaking _dimension,_ but the fact that they knew his actual name, _Obito,_ when everyone in his world thought Obito was _dead_ was so concerning on so many levels that he had absolutely _no_ clue how he was going to explain this to his master later.

In any case, his day was _bad enough,_ horrible, possibly classified as the second or third worst day of his life.

And now it was even worse.

Because they'd followed him.

Apparently kamui could transport _other people._ Who knew that if someone else touched it they would come too? _He_ certainly hadn't! It was likely that not even _Madara-sensei_ knew that, otherwise he would have gotten _that_ warning too! Urgh, his side was killing him where that metal-rock had smashed into him... his bad side, too...

He finally scowled at the three, realizing they were unconscious.

... They weren't dead, were they?

Obito shook his head, glancing around him to try and figure out where he was. He obviously wasn't near Kannabi bridge like he'd intended to end up... There were sparse copses of trees everywhere; they were probably past the border into the Land of Fire.

It didn't matter if they were dead, anyway, it would be better if his world had killed them, then he wouldn't have to tell Madara-sensei...

Suddenly he could sense chakra signatures. Very weak, very small chakra signatures like an unborn child's but it was there, and it hadn't been a half second ago, so where in the world was it- and they were getting stronger. A kid's at least.

His eyes flicked back down to the kids.

Obito had never seen anyone de-age, or even thought about what it would look like. Immortality? Yes, of course, every ninja dreamed of immortality at some point, but getting younger at the pace of a Summons animal getting bigger? It was disturbing and fascinating at the same time. There was a sound like scraping bones and wet ice as the muscles underneath their skin bubbled and writhed, shrinking.

Their hair, he noticed numbly, wasn't getting any shorter.

Their chakra signatures were steadily getting stronger, and by the time it finally stopped (Obito couldn't, actually, look away) they were around the level of a genin or Academy student. Their clothes pooled about them. They were lying practically on top of each other; a tangle of limbs and torsos that gradually slipped away from each other as they shortened and thinned.

The wet crackling sounds finally stopped probably two or three minutes later. One of them was twitching.

 _Well, that was horrifying._

They were probably alive. What should he do- kill them? He kind of wanted to, they were pretty much freaks of nature now and he'd just watched them _de-age_ for crying out loud- but now they looked younger and it felt weirder, the idea of killing them, like he was thinking of stabbing a couple of sleeping kids for no reason.

Not for no reason, they'd clobbered him with a metal-rock!

... Although he was pretty sure they'd been trying to help him and hadn't meant to do it from their panicked voices... what language had they spoken, anyway? It almost sounded familiar. Obito brushed that off. No, he was imagining things. The best thing to do was just leave them here.

Ehh, but if he did that they would probably get eaten by boars or something...

He took a few cautious steps closer, half-expecting them to try and suck out his chakra to take for their own or something freaky like that. But they didn't move- well, except for the red-haired one lying on her back that was twitching. It didn't look comfortable- she was wearing a bulky pack and she was bent like a _C._ The one with the brown hair held in a ponytail by some kind of cap that hadn't spoken any japanese- even sucky japanese- was lying flat on her stomach. The boy with short dirty blond hair was on his side.

They looked completely pathetic. Definitely defenseless.

Damn it.

He had too many kunai to spare that he didn't use anyway. Way too many. And if Madara wanted to come back and kill them later, well, it wasn't like they were gonna get that far with a kunai blade. Also he didn't have to do it.

Slowly he pulled out a few, dropping one by each person. As he tried to drop a blade next to the redhead, his cloak accidentally brushed up against her face.

Her movement went from a twitch to suddenly-roundhouse-punch.

Obito stumbled out of the way, narrowly avoiding her hand, realized she was still asleep and decided right then and there in that moment that he was completely done with these freaks. He turned, tried to focus around the jittery fear that one of them was about to turn into a demon and try to kill him, and kamui'd himself- hopefully- to Kannabi bridge.

 **...**

 **...**

 **Hey, this is Pikapixie The Demigod! I'm helping redhead with her first story. This is something we developed halfway through last school year, and it's lead to some very complicated, detailed, thoroughly useless conversations that we typed down so we wouldn't forget...**

 **Anyway, this is an OC SI fic with me, Lily, and our friend Shane that was sort of a bigger part of the plan at the moment than he is now... anyway, this fic will _probably_ finish all the way through.**

 **Hey redhead here but if you came from Pikapixie's story then you probably know me as Lily. Any who I realize that we need to explain A LOT of things.**

 **I'll start with the japanese translations. (Pixie again, because I type faster) Keep in mind that not only did we muck up the characters' japanese on purpose (because while Lily and Shane know some japanese and at the point in a few years would speak it more fluently, they still would mess things up and trip over foreign words.) but we also got this from google translate, because _we don't speak japanese._ Not fluently! (I don't at all. 'Hai' is my entire vocabulary. Oh, and baka.)**

 **The phrases are in order, but also realize that since you're reading it rom the point of view of someone who doesn't know japanese, you don't have to know what it means to read it.**

 _"Jutsu wa dono yōna koreha?"_ = **'what jutsu was that?'**

 _"Kimi was daredai?!"_ = **'who are you?!'**

 _"Anata wa eigo o hanasemasu ka?"_ = **'can you speak english?'**

 _"Eigo? Anata no akusento wa okashīdesu. Koko wa doko desuka?"_ = **'English? You speak with a strange accent. Where is this/am I?'**

 _"Uhm… An-ata wa… yaku arimase-uh, arimasu"_ = Anata wa yaku arimasu = **'Uh, we're about-'**

 _"Orlando shijūgo… uh, hana-rete kara sūbun."_ = Orlando shijugo hanarete subun = **'forty five minutes away from Orlando.'**

 _"Nani? Dono yō ni watashi no namae o shitte imasu ka?"_ = **'what? How do you know my name?'**

 _"Watashitachi wa… uh… anata no namay o, shirimasin. Daijōbudesaka?"_ = Watashitachi wa anata no namay o shirimasen, Daijobudesuka? = ' **We don't know your name. Are you alright?"**

 _"Watashi wa, anata ga watashi no namae o shitte iru no ka wakarimasen. Osoraku madara wa ōku o shiru koto ga dekimasu. Watashi wa sore wa watashi ga watashi no kyūkawotoru jikanda to omoimasu."_ = ' **I don't know how you know my name. Perhaps Madara will be able to tell me. For now, I think it's time I take my leave.'**

 **That's it. Also, this is technically a future-fic where we're a few years older (not that it matters in the long run... we got shrunk) Lily is 18, and me and Shane are 17.**

 **ONE MORE THING! The reason Obito seems kind of, well, Obito-ish and confused is because we kind of figure there was some kind of transition from obito to madara-obito, and that at some point he had to be perfecting his kamui-jutsu. Anyway, I think that's it. Lily's probably going to create a side-story for all of her detailed theories as the characters come up with them.**

 **Bye!**

 **Okay thanks Lex and for 'Beta'ing for me**

 **PLEASE REVIEW!**


	2. Teashops And Fucking Uchihas!

"So, do you want to wake her up, or you want me to?" A familiar voice questioned.

"Heck no, you do it, I already got swung at once." another voice muttered.

Lily would have groaned had she been fully awake. Currently, she was trapped in the pleasant limbo between lucid dreaming and deep sleep. Her head still swirled with alluring dreams that she wanted to hold onto, and was surrounded by a comforting foggy haze.

"Okay, jeez! Lily? Lily?" The voice was irritatingly persistent, strangely nervous and shaky. "Lily, time to get up."

 _Shut the fuck up and let me sl-_

She felt something touch her leg.

"Nergrg!" Lily mumbled loudly, lips still slack from sleep as she almost unconsciously rolled onto her side and attempted to deck whatever had touched her in the face. Something heavy pulled at her shoulder as she did so.

"Fuck why does my back hurt so much…whoa, my voice sounds weird." she muttered to herself as she tried to sit up, only to be pulled back down by the same weight that had restrained her punch. "Oh... my backpack's still on…" she realized. "Wait, why's my backpack on..?"

 _Where am I?_

"Glad to see you're finally up." Shane said sarcastically. Lily knew it was Shane because no one besides my parents would _dare_ talk to her like that in the morning- or whatever time she decided would be morning that day- except maybe Lexi, who wasn't really sarcastic anyway.

Lily pried her eyes open, and immediately regretted that decision, as the glaring sun blinded her momentarily. Who the hell had opened the curtains? What time was it, anyway? If it was before nine she was going to kill them both. "Shane, I bought two hotel rooms for a reasooo- what the _hell?"_ Lily squinted her eyes as the world came into focus _._ "Why you so short?"

Shane and Lexi exchanged glances. Not only were they both way shorter than she remembered- even kneeling like they were- but their facial features were different as well, rounder, and now that she thought about it- why did her voice sound so funny?

She frowned when she finally felt grass under her skin. Why grass? Oh, God, please don't have let them all gotten drunk or something and fallen asleep outside...

Finally shrugging off her pack, Lily got up, rolling onto all fours and taking in her surroundings.

"This is some Inception dream bullshit right here," she commented, taking in the scenery of the surrounding forest. All around there were huge trees, and the ground was studded with roots and flowers and shrubbery. Birds sang and chattered somewhere in the canopy above them.

"Lily, you're not dreaming, all of that just happened…" Lexi smiled, and her smile twitched like she'd chugged a Red Bull. "Like... a couple hours ago, dunno. I woke up Shane, and..." She giggled slightly, eyes wide. "And we're younger."

Lily stared at her twitching friend blankly, face tense.

"Why are you making that face?" she asked apprehensively. She drew back slightly when Lexi just smiled even more. "Stop, you're creeping me out."

Her friend just glanced around at the surroundings again before looking back at her. Suddenly Lily felt her face contort into an irritated expression. "And why the hell you sound so happy about that!?" She screeched. Lily could feel the blood pulsing in her ears.

"Because we're-" Lexi started; her smile widened to the point that it looked painful. "In the Narutoverse!" she finished with a little flourish of her hands, gesturing to the- _Hashirama?_ \- trees all around them. Lily gave her friend a disparaging look, then sighed.

"Okay, since Lexi seems to be having a moment..." The eldest teen- _or preteen now apparently-_ glanced back at her friend, who now was doing some strange sporadic upper body happy dance while kneeling on the ground. Which was weird in its own right, since Lexi was usually self-conscious and didn't dance in public... "Please do enlighten me as to what the fuck happened?" Lily said in a pained voice as she turned to Shane, the apparent voice of reason at the given moment.

"Well," the blond boy began, stroking his nonexistent goatee. "You were driving, hit Obito Uchiha with-"

" _Uchiha_ , Obito, you say the _surname_ first." Lily interrupted with an annoyed tone. Lexi frowned, mouth still partially opened, having been beat by half a second, then shrugged and continued to spaz happily. Lily still wasn't entirely sure she wasn't drunk. Or high. Or conscious.

Shane continued completely unfazed. "Hit Uchiha Obito with your car, he got pissed, flipped-slash-destroyed your car, decided to leave via Kamui, then Lexi-" He pointed to the youngest female of the group, who, for the most part, had finally calmed down. "- decided that it would be an _excellent_ idea to tackle the guy that nearly killed us."

"I would do it again," The brunette piped in.

"Then you went full mama bear mode and ran in after her." He ignored the sour look the redhead gave him. "And since I had nothing better to do, seeing as though all my stuff was in your car and I was probably gonna get arrested anyway, I followed you. In my defense, I thought it was a hallucination."

"…"

"I think we broke Lily."

"I would've thought she'd be excited…"

"How could she be excited? We got left for dead in the forest by Obito."

Lily snapped out of her momentary catatonia, only to scream at the top of her lungs "Fucking _Uchihas!"_

"Lily!" Lexi protested, flailing her hands a little. As Lily slowly became more and more aware of her surroundings, she noticed that both herself and Lexi had managed to bring their bags with them into the- Naruto-verse, although Shane didn't have his. They really were sitting in the middle of the forest, not even a clearing, surrounded by trees on every side. "You're scaring all the birds!"

"Fuck the birds! Fuck everything! I'm so pissed I could spit acid right now!" Lily wasn't exactly sure who she was even angry at- not really Lexi, despite the fact that this was pretty much her fault- and there wasn't really all that many other people to be-

 _Obito._

"What is it?" Lexi asked, concerned.

After taking a deep breath, Lily said, "Okay, we need to come up with a game plan. First, we need to get our stuff together and leave behind everything we don't need- we'll burn it. Then we need to figure out where the hell Konoha is, then book it to that place before Uchihas show up and kill us all."

"Well-" Lexi hesitated, face scrunching up slightly in thought. "Well... I know the Land of Fire is up against the water, and the sun still sets against the ocean canonically... so we just have to wait until the sun starts to go down and follow it, straight. Might take a few days, though..."

"Oh no no. Oh no no _no_ no no no." she said angrily, waving her hands negatively. "We are _not_ staying here! Obito probably told Madara about us and old Fart-dara is gonna be all like, 'go back and get rid of them, there must be no witnesses hn!' and I can't deal with that; we need to go go _go_ like _yesterday!"_ Lily's voice changed to an incoherent mumble. "Goddamn overpowered assholes with a penchant for stabbing people..."

Lexi frowned. "No, we have to wait for the sun. I know we're in Land of Fire right now but-"

"I'm sure I have _something_ in this bag of wonders that will tell us what direction the sun is going! You _know_ how my backpack is."

"She has a point. The last time I looked through that thing, she had three forks, a butter knife, tinfoil, paracord, duct tape... that's about as far as I got. I didn't get to look through all of it before she punched me."

"Oh, stop being so dramatic." Despite herself, Lily rolled her eyes. "I didn't even punch you, it was just a love tap."

"No," Lexi repeated. Some of the excited gleam drained out of her eyes as she thought, biting her lip. "There's really no way to tell which way the sun will fall... none that we know, anyway. And if we just go off blind without heading straight to Konoha, we could end up anywhere from Ame to Kusa... even Iwa, if we miss Kusa. We could even end up in _Sound."_

Shane frowned at 'Sound'. "Yeah... no thanks. I do _not_ wanna become one of Orochimaru's science experiments."

"Not to mention that we have no idea what timeline we're in." Lexi scratched at her arm thoughtfully.

"Wait, we have some idea of what timeline we're in. I did hear some of what Obito said, and Madara's definitely still alive. Obito's already taken up his name, which means that the Uchiha clan is already dead..."

"Wait, but Madara's alive..." Lexi blinked slowly. "That doesn't make sense. Naruto's plot was over. Now that I think about it, Obito shouldn't even be alive at this point! How did he get from the past of another universe to the present of ours? He can time travel now?"

"Well, being here at all doesn't make any sense either, so I'm up for anything." Shane pointed out. "So, are we staying to make sure we don't end up in Sound, or leaving to make sure we don't get killed by Madara?"

"Hang on, I've got to figure out what's actually going on here." Lily pulled her legs into a criss cross, reaching for her bag to rifle through it for her notebook. "Until then, put a stick or something in the dirt where the shadows are, like a sundial, so we can figure out which direction the sun is going, so that I have time to think, and when I'm done, we know which way to go."

"We should probably hide before you start writing things down." Lexi glanced around, suddenly almost nervous. "I mean, it isn't like we can hide our chakra at all... I think we have chakra, I feel funny... but still."

"One thing at a time, one thing at a time." Lily said dismissively. "So, there's obviously some plot inconsistencies, since Madara's still alive, but Obito took up his name."

"Was it ever canonically said that he was dead when Obito took up his name?" Lexi asked.

"I'm pretty sure it was." Lily zipped her bag shut after pulling out a pencil.

Lexi went for her bag, then, pulling open the drawstring top and rummaging through it. The only things in there were her cosplay and her fanfiction journals, everything else had been in her suitcase. In the car. "I'd still rather hide... while you're doing that, I'm gonna try and see if I can remember the map of the countries."

"Even if we do hide, it's not really gonna matter, so we might as well stay here. We're leaving soon though," she said, scooting backwards to lean against a tree, to take some of the pressure off her back, which was _really_ hurting right then. She squinted at her empty notebook page. "Now, back to my train of thought..."

So, she thought to herself, writing down key bullets.

 _Timeline_

 _Madara's alive. (Probably.)_

 _Obito is also alive, has already taken on Madara's name_

 _Obito cannot use Kamui properly. (Still training?)_

 _Has taken on Madara's name, which means that Uchiha are dead, which means Itachi is in Akatsuki, so Sasuke is already angsty little brother_

 _Sasuke 6 or 7 during attack. (Age now?)_

Lily frowned. There really was no way to tell how old the rookie nine would be at this point, just that the Uchiha had been killed and Itachi was probably already in Akatsuki. In her journal she wrote, _No further information on timeline._

"Now... how is it we got here..."

"Figured out where the sun is going." Shane's voice cut into her thoughts. Her pencil paused. "We should probably get going now."

"Wait, did we put down a stick?" Lexi looked up from the half-filled page in her journal now crammed with side notes and sketches of the naruto-verse map. "How long has it been?"

"Shane put down a stick," Lily pointed out. "When I asked him to."

"Oh."

"Okay. So we need to go through our stuff, and pick through what we need and what we don't. Burn what we can."

Shane raised his eyebrows. "Done."

"I don't know how you're making fire," Lexi said pointedly, "But you're _not_ burning my journals. I am keeping them and they are mine."

"Okay," Lily said again, raising her hands in a calming gesture. "Was _not_ suggesting that. What I meant was, I'm sorry, but the Neji cosplay's gonna have to go. As well as most of our technology."

 ** _"No."_** Shane growled, clutching his phone to his chest with a slightly possessive look on his face.

"Well at the very least, take out the battery," she said with a shrug, gesturing to her own now battery-less phone in her hand.

Lexi brightened. "Are you kidding? I'm in the naruto-verse, why would I need to cosplay? I don't, I'm practically a _character_ now! Anyway, my phone can't do anything but text and we don't have phone lines-"

"Oh, God." Lily said suddenly, fingering the edges of her hair in what had been an absent manner. Both of her friends blinked. "I have red hair. Think of the history of Naruto characters that have red hair." She paused. "I am _fucked."_

"Hehe, yeah..." Lexi said. "Wait, what about Gaara? His life turned out okay."

"Yeah, _turned out okay,"_ she pointed out. "But not before he had, like, six assassination attempts on his life, Yashamaru died- on that order- turned into a psycho, became Kazekage, _died,_ got the shit beat out of him by both Sasuke and Madara, and then... that haircut." Lily made a face.

"Point taken," Lily's friends muttered in unison.

"Okay, let's see what _I_ have in my mystical bag of wonders..." Lily zipped open the flap, peering inside before sticking a hand in. "Let's see, got all my journals, uhh... got half my Kushina cosplay in here... sewing kit... a shit ton of pencils... okay, let's check the other pockets now... oh yay, my yukata's in here."

Okay while Lily's busy with that." Lexi called out to Shane, as she half listened to her friend mutter about too many lighters and something about Altoids tins and band-aids and half erased a wayward line in her notebook. At her distracted wave he moved closer to see it. "I just finished drawing the map and I _think_ I know where we are…roughly. I'm so glad I memorized this somehow."

"Well, get on with it." Shane said in a slightly impatient manner, crossing his arms as he leaned over the brunette's shoulder to get a better view of the map. She brushed it one final time with her hand to get the eraser pieces off, then leaned back slightly, dropping one hand to the grass. With her other hand, she pointed.

"Well, we're definitely nowhere near Kanabi Bridge, but I'm pretty sure we're in the land of Fire and somewhat close to Konoha..." Lexi said with a slightly unsure voice as she made a quick glance at the trees. "I mean, the trees are the same. And there's no telltale of any of the other lands, and-"

"Wait, why do you think we're near Konoha?" Lily questioned suddenly right behind the both of them. There was a pencil tucked behind her ear, and was wearing her knee length yukata over her purple hoodie. She bent over a little to study the rough, homemade map.

Lexi jumped slightly, drawing her journal to her chest. "Meh! Don't do that! And like I said before, it _looks_ like the Land of Fire. And, well, the trees are…"

Shane raised his brow slightly at her hesitation. "…What about the trees?"

Lexi's brows furrowed in confusion, and she tapped her fingers against her notebook absently, still pressing it to her chest as she cast a look around at the looming canopies of trees and leaves, bushes and other flora. "I don't know how to describe it, really. It's like… they're alive- well of course they're alive, but like... I don't know. Like they're pulsing? I just know they're Hashirama trees."

"Okay, well, we'll wonder about Lexi's connection with the Hashi trees later." Lily interrupted to get them back on course. "Right now we have more pressing matters."

"Right, so I think we're somewhere in between Kanabi bridge and Konoha. There aren't any mushrooms or anything, so we're not anywhere near Kusa... and I mean, I could be way off, but based on where the sun's falling we aren't near Rivers, or any of the major stuff like the Valley of the end. If I'm right and it took like three days ninja speed to get to Suna from Konoha, then we should be able to get to Konoha in like two days. Maybe."

"It would probably take a little longer- because, remember, three days was pissed-off Naruto speed." Lily piped in as she distinctly remembered this from her only Shippuden Naruto manga book; she was too cheap to buy the rest of them and read mostly online anyway. And the anime only enhanced that. Not only were they not ninjas, but they also weren't Naruto.

"True... but it's a much shorter distance from here to Konoha, and we're bound to run into some patrols." Lexi said defending her time calculation. "As long as we keep lined up with the sun- um- east maybe? Isn't that where the water always is? Anyway if we follow it we should end up at least close to Konoha."

"Who cares how long it'll take? Let's just go, we've been here for a couple hours already. Not including the time Lily was sleeping." Shane added, glancing over at Lily as the redhead scowled at him.

"Bite me," she snapped. "But I also decided not to burn the stuff because that might attract other people, so I'm gonna shred what I can and bury it." Lily's sour look turned to a one of sadness as she looked at her fake Konoha headband.

Lexi smiled, something almost akin to a shy grin. "Don't feel too bad, Lily. If this is right and my headcanons are real, you'll have a real one soon enough." The her eyes widened slightly, like she'd just remembered something important. "Oh by the way, Obito left us some kunai, I think. Here's yours."

Pulling the knife out from the outer pocket of her book bag, she held it out for her to take. Lily did so and inspected the blade, turning it over in her fingers- it was heavier than she would have liked, but beggars can't be choosers, she decided. Lily sighed. "How thoughtful of him."

 **...**

After getting rid of everything incriminating, useless, or trash, burying what they could and burning what they couldn't, the three of them had set off in the direction of the sun. Hopefully, it would bring them at least near enough to Konoha to find a trail, people, patrols, perhaps. Konoha was their safest bet by far.

But that had been hours ago. Now the sun was setting with the last dying rays of red and pink barely visible through the gaps of the canopies, already the trees were casting flickering, patterned shadows across the ground, making it hard to see roots, plants, even small animals that occasionally scampered underfoot.

It hadn't been horrible. The scenery was, well, scenic, and Lexi gazed at everything, and although she didn't _ooh_ or _ahh_ it was easy to tell she was already infatuated with this world, the one she'd left behind easily and already forgotten. Her fingers gripped her backpack straps, happily emptied of all things their dimension. Shane was hanging in the back of their little trio, not saying much aside from the occasional unanswerable question about time.

Lily herself only muttered things to herself now and then, questions and possible answers, and she let her eyes dart about, keeping a tight grip on the handle of the kunai in the pocket underneath her homemade yukata.

"So, how long until we take a break from walking?" Shane asked in a neutral tone just behind her shoulder, cutting through the noise of insects and silence. "Because we've been going for about three or four hours now and it's getting dark."

Lily could tell he was trying not to sound like he was complaining, but despite the de-aging thing having apparently fixed some of his hip problems... they were definitely still there. Still, she only grunted, casting a look about her at the darkening forests.

"I also can't really see at all right now," Lexi added almost casually. That much was a little obvious; she'd tripped on at least six roots or rocks or whatever in the past half hour. Still, though, it was odd she wanted to stop, too. She didn't look all that tired.

She turned to her friends, both on her left, with a mildly exasperated expression. She tried not to let the irritation bleed into her voice- the sooner they got to Konoha, the better. "Oh come _on,_ guys, it's not _that_ dark out." She paused; blinked, then frowned. "Lexi, what happened to your glasses?"

Shane snorted loudly. "You seriously just noticed that?"

"I'm _sorry,_ but I was more focused on how we turned five years younger!" Lily's voice cracked a little in her indignant squeak.

"That's kinda the point." Lexi, she'd only just noticed, had taken off her glasses; probably she had put them in her backpack so they wouldn't break somehow. "So, you know how my eyesight got progressively worse as I grew up?"

Lexi nodded as she watched her face turn from confused to understanding. "You mean to say that your freaking prescription changed." It wasn't a question, not really, Lily was simply baffled.

"Yeah, isn't that cool. My vision got better, and worse, I guess." She laughed. "Still need new glasses, though."

So Lexi had been affected much in the same way Shane had. Her eyesight was better, but without the right prescription she really couldn't see all that great anyway. Had everything reverted back to when they were- however old they were now? "Well, I guess that explains why my back doesn't hurt nearly as much as it usually would."

"So, stopping- yes, no?"

Lily sighed again, though by Lexi's amused expression she figured it came out as more of a tired groan. "Fine!" she grumbled and stopped to turn towards her friends, who halted to avoid running into each other. "Let's find a _suitable_ place to make camp."

"All the Naruto characters always find a dirt spot surrounded by trees to keep their back against," Lexi suggested.

"Yeah, surrounded by trees so we can get surrounded in the canopies by tree-walking ninjas."

"Kakashi does it," she said defensively.

"Yeah, well, Kakashi probably also has barrier tags, and while I can probably figure that out later- not tonight."

"True," she muttered. "But where else are we going to sleep? Either a dirt spot surrounded by trees or on top of roots surrounded by trees. Either way, we're surrounded by trees."

"Fine. Then we'll have shifts to keep watch."

"Like the ninja do." Lexi's face brightened. "Can I do first watch? I've always wanted to say that."

"Uh. Sure, if you want."

"I call last," Shane volunteered.

 **...**

"Ahg, my fricking feet are killing me," Shane whined from his spot leaned up against a tree. He'd taken off both shoes, and was leaned up against the rough bark of a Hashirama tree.

"Mine too," Lexi agreed, rubbing her left foot where it sat crossed against her knee, although her tone sounded more observative than annoyed. Like Shane, she had leaned up against the trunk of a tree, and was inspecting the sole of her shoe like she could see her foot through it.

"Well, maybe you guys should've brought better walking shoes," Lily commented, dropping the last stone for a fire pit before straightening and brushing off her yukata.

"How were we supposed to plan for that?" Shane demanded at the same time as Lexi demurred, "I like my flats."

"We were going to be walking around at a convention all day," Lily said dryly. "I can't imagine that it would be much better. Can one of you clear out a place for us to sleep while I find firewoo-...I smell smoke."

The second the words left her mouth, Lily heard something whiz through the air above her and froze, eyes shooting up.

"Lily _duck!"_ Lexi yelled suddenly, eyes wide at the point above her head, and not a moment too soon- for the second she jerked her head down, a jet of heat like fire shot past where her head had just been, stopping with a sharp _twang_ as it stuck into the wood of a Hashirama tree a few yards away. The fire seemed to burn out without catching the bark on fire, revealing as it did the slightly charred hilt of an arrow, stuck in past its head.

Lexi scrambled to her feet. Shane, still without his shoes, merely jolted.

"What the _fu-"_ he sputtered, but was interrupted by a grousing voice.

"Awww, I _missed_..." the unknown voice drawled from the canopies. Lily tensed, and looked up again, stepping quickly back a few steps both from where she'd been standing and the cluster of trees it was coming from.

"Yeah, well, maybe if you didn't light the arrow on _fire,_ they wouldn't have noticed us." Another slightly deeper voice sounded from the same direction, just as dry as her own at times.

"What the- Where's it coming from?" Lexi asked wildly, backing up against the tree and leaning down for her backpack, presumably for the kunai she didn't even know how to use.

"Bitch, get down here! I will end you!" Lily yelled. It probably wasn't the best idea, but she was stressed, tired, her feet hurt, she was already in a bad mood and now she was pissed.

"Lily, shut up," Lexi murmured. "Ninja, remember?"

The trees rustled slightly as two blurs, indistinct for a moment in the still-darkening nighttime before they hit the ground lightly, like they'd dropped from two feet and not twenty.

Bandits, she thought. They had to be. No headband, just two guys with thrown together armor from different- sets? They didn't look like they were supposed to be put together. Probably stolen. Both had dark hair, eyes indistinct in the shadows, and both looked completely casual, one almost pouting, the other with a smirk.

"Normally I'd say go for it," Shane said warily, standing now that he'd tugged his shoes on, untied. "But you only have street experience. They have- _experience_ experience."

The smirking one snickered. "Aw," he said. "Did we make you mad?"

"I was already pissed off!" Lily spat, ignoring her friends' protests. "I'm having a bad day already! I will give you _one fucking chance_ to leave!"

"She's adorable," the other said. "Can we keep her?"

"What." It wasn't a question, and Lily felt her own face blank out.

"Please leave us alone," Lexi interjected. "We literally don't have anything but a backpack and like, three kunai- _ah!"_

She screamed and scrambled forward; and there was a noise like a cracking school desk from where she stood. Another shape, just as blurry and indistinct in the dark as the other two had been, barked out a cry as it flew back and bounced off a tree; then a thud as it fell to the ground, half-covered by shadow.

Another bandit.

Now unconscious.

"Where did that come from?" Shane asked in a stunned voice.

"Where did what come from-" Lexi spluttered, then paused at the small near-tree behind her, new and young and shorter than all the other trees by spades. It had no leaves. "What."

"Did you just _wood release?"_

Lily blinked, then whipped again to face the other two bandits- the distraction, she realized now, but that wasn't important- and saw that their faces, once tan even in the growing darkness, had gone white.

Thinking quickly, Lily turned again towards her friend and shook her arm like a snake in the air.

Lexi's face, still terrified, only changed slightly with her confusion. Again she wiggled her arm like a slithering shake, but it took another few seconds before her face lit up.

"Oh!" She took what looked like a quick, heaving breath, then laced her fingers together in the Snake hand symbol. Thank God she'd remembered it... There was a half second of silence, and then she spoke when the bandits didn't. "Wood Release: Wood Dragon Te-"

"Come on, Buzo, this ain't worth it!"

"What about Jin?"

"Forget Jin! Just go!"

They darted back up in the trees so fast they were nothing but a blur- shunshin in action. Just as quickly as their flaming arrow had appeared, they left, leaving quiet and cicadas behind in the clearing.

After a minute without anyone moving or saying anything, Lexi dropped her hands at her sides and sagged against the tree. "I'm so glad they didn't let me finish that sentence," she sighed out, putting a hand to her chest. "I was completely bluffing in every way."

"Oh God," Lily said. The she gestured wildly at the bandit, at Lexi, at the freaking _pillar of wood_ almost completely hidden by shadow, studded with closed buds. "My best friend is a _mary sue!"_

Shane's face blanked, and then he moaned, "My ex is a mary sue!"

"Oh, shoot," Lexi said numbly, banging her head back against the tree trunk to look up at the canopy. "I'm a mary sue."

"You just used Wood Release!" Lily yelled, then cut herself off as her eyes once again caught the unconscious figure of the bandit. They should probably move out of here. She grinned, momentarily distracted. "I'm gonna steal his stuff."

"Lily!"

"What? He was gonna knock you out, and you don't wanna get back at him?" Lily scoffed. "Besides, we need his stuff more."

"Two wrongs don't make a right," Lexi admonished. "Besides, it seems kind of weird to rob the robber..."

"Survival of the fittest reigns supreme in this world, Lexi, plus it's hilariously ironic." Lily paused for a second. "And in this case, _you_ are the fittest."

 **...**

"He had poison on him!" Lily exclaimed, swishing around a small bottle of clear greenish liquid. The bottle was glass and warped, antique and foreign looking. There was no way of telling what exactly it was, the wording on the label had faded. "Wicked! But I don't know what it does..." She shrugged. "Eh, I'll just put it in my bag."

"How do you know it's poison?"

"Smelled it."

"Isn't there airborne poison?" Shane said disinterestedly, looking at the path ahead.

"That's true but, i know it's not airborne because it's completely liquid and there are no gases in the bottle or gaseous residue on the sides."Lily shrugged again. "Anyway, that's why I wafted it."

"How do you know that?"

"Do you really want to know?"

Lexi just continued walking between them, fingers on the straps of her drawstring backpack.

There hadn't been much else to do. Lily had gone through his bag and his pockets, which was admittedly a little creepy to watch over. For a bandit, he hadn't had much, just a couple of weapons, poisons, and some packaged onigiri and potato chips. It wasn't like they could call the police, so they hadn't really had much choice but to leave him there in the clearing.

Immediately, they had left. They had abandoned the unlit fire pit, packed up their stuff, and continued to walk, despite the darkness, nerves too shot to try to sleep.

Actually, it hadn't taken long before the three of them had managed to find a trail, a long, winding dirt pathway that cut through the trees. Instantly Lexi had recognized it as the trail civilians and unhurried shinobi used to travel. Now there was no way to miss Konoha- thankfully.

Probably.

Hopefully it was the right trail.

...

The three teens had been walking for little over an hour when Lily abruptly stopped in the middle of the trail, causing her companions to nearly slam into her. The redhead turned, facing a random direction, leaning forward slightly to sniff the air. She got a strange glint in her eyes, slightly crazed and almost hopeful.

The other two observed quietly; both of them knew just how sensitive Lily's sense of smell was, to the point that it was almost scary.

"I smell tea, green tea!" she rejoiced, and stared off in the the direction of the lovely aroma, only to be pulled back by her hood. Making a noise similar to a whining dog, she turned her head back to see what was stopping her.

"Wait just a second, Lily," Shane said. "Let's think about this- it might not even be a real tea shop you smell."

"But- but- but _tea,"_ she whined. "And maybe food. Because I'm running out of snacks- that _you keep fooking eating."_

"Excuse me for not having time to eat breakfast before you decided to kidnap me for Megacon."

"I told your mom..."

"Even if it's not a teahouse, they might still have food," Lexi pointed out. "Or at least an actual map and directions. We haven't exactly been running under the best conditions lately."

"See, even Voice Of Reason agrees with me!" Lily challenged petulantly.

"You know what? Fine." Shane scoffed, and let go of Lily's hood. She immediately took a few steps away, folding her arms indignantly. "But when we get ambushed or something, don't come crying to me."

...

For being so excited over just the _smell_ of tea, it really did take her a while to actually _get inside,_ which gave Lexi plenty of time to study the thing. It was pretty small as far as buildings went, but maybe that was an America non-naruto-verse thing and this was an average building.

It was simply made and looked a little old, with worn wood plank walls and a thatched roof, which spread out like an awning over a few similarly worn wooden tables and chairs. Here and there were signs, oddly linear, advertising drinks and foods and prices. Warm light filtered out through the windows. The teahouse itself- and that's what she assumed it was- was surrounded by a little copse of trees, practically on top of a well-traveled dirt trail.

It was actually really nice. Something you would never see, even in their sleepy little beachside area in Florida. Actually, everything was. A really nice aesthetic. If she actually liked tea, this place would be perfect.

It was probably a little while longer than necessary before she realized that Lily was gone. Shane was still outside, though, so it couldn't have been _too_ long.

"Lily went inside already," Shane put in dryly. "If you're wondering."

Lexi smiled a little sheepishly, casting off the last effects of her daydream, and pushed through the curtain, a dark mossy green fabric that it took her a moment to pick out from the shadowy wood of the walls and trunks of the surrounding trees. Shane followed close behind her.

The teahouse looked much bigger on the inside than the outside. Not huge, just not as stifled-looking as she had expected. Maybe like the size of a coffee shop or bagel store. It was well-lit and mostly empty save for two servers in identical uniforms, Lily and a shopkeeper or employee at the front. There weren't many tables, but the far wall behind the worker was covered in shelves of tea boxes Lexi didn't even recognize the brand names of.

The entire shop was done in pleasant light greens and earthy yellows and browns, with wide tiles on the floors and a few minimal tapestries and tablecloths, and the lining on the employees' outfits.

Which was to be expected, given that they were in the Naruto-verse and all...

Lily, who had been talking animatedly to one of the servers, an older-looking portly man with smile lines in his face and long grey hair and a sculpted, or as Lily would have said, glorious beard, seemed to notice her entering out of the corner of her eye. She jerked her hand to motion her forward, but almost as soon as Lexi had taken a step Lily bounded towards her and they met in the middle.

"I just managed to strike a deal with the manager," she said without any ado, grinning. "And I set up a tab! Because... uh... persuasion skills. I have them. Oh- and directions. That's also important." She frowned slightly. "Turns out your map was almost completely right..."

"That moment," Shane said from behind Lexi, "When you're not sure whether to be proud or concerned. How do you know the Naruto world map?"

"My Fanfiction," Lexi blurted proudly, then flushed. "I mean, uh... I studied it a lot?"

Before he could say anything snarky and probably rude, Lexi noticed one of the two servers- a younger man, maybe sixteen or seventeen, around the age she had been before... now. Her eyes were immediately drawn to his face- not because he was particularly good-looking; although he _was_ handsome in an annoyed, irritated way. It was because of the scar on his face- a huge burn that squinted his left eye.

The fact that those eyes were just as interestingly gold-yellow fire colored, hawkish and narrow, and that his hair was black and shaggy, cut near his ears, came a few seconds later.

It was another few seconds before she realized he was starting to look more and more annoyed and irritated the longer she stared at his face because he was trying to lead them to a table.

"Lexi." There was a loud sound just beside her ear, and she flinched before realizing someone was snapping. Shane. Shane was snapping. "You're spacing out again. Stop staring."

Once again, Lily had moved from her line of sight, already seated at the table the server person had been gesturing towards more and more violently. She waved.

"We haven't really slept in a couple of days," Lily said aloud, probably to the server. "Quite literally... Please excuse her behavior."

Startled, and a little sheepish, Lexi quickly made her way to the table and sat down at the chair farthest from the server, tucked into the corner. She trained her eyes on the wood grain of the table and fiddled with the hem of her shirt.

"Hello," the teen grated, managing to sound simultaneously dull and extremely irritated. "Welcome to the White Lotus Teahouse. My name is Lee. Our specials today are Oolong, Jasmine, and Chai tea. Is there anything I can get you?"

"I'll take a large green tea and three sticks of mitarashi dango, please," Lily said immediately.

"Uh..." Shane frowned, clearly out of his element. "Jasmine, please, and... whatever she said."

Lee looked over, if not expectantly than a little impatiently. Lexi hesitated for a second, wondering whether or not it would be rude to say she didn't like tea... there was a sharp jab against her shin under the table. "Lexi," Lily hissed.

"Do you- um-" she blurted, flustered, "Have, uh, anything other than tea?"

"She'll have a glass of water," Lily cut in before Lee's expression could even shift. "And dango as well, please."

"Anything else?" he said, faux-politely.

"That'll be all, sir," Lily said smoothly, and with a less than subtle eye-roll, Lee was gone, heading for the front of the store.

"Well that went well," Shane muttered.

"Ehh..." She dropped her face down into her arms the second the server's back was turned. "Every single time... even in the Naruto-verse..."

A few minutes later- Lexi still hadn't pulled up her head despite Lily's attempts at comfort- half because she was still mortified and partly also because it was comfortable- there was a smooth voice from the head of the table, jovial and friendly. "I hope that my nephew didn't offend you," they said, and she glanced up enough to recognize the older man that Lily had been talking to before. "He's nicer than he comes off as."

"No problem," she said softly when she realized he was talking to her, specifically. "I was staring at him on accident."

"Oh!" Lily said suddenly, and turned to face him. "Thank you for vouching for me about the tab earlier. I really appreciate it, Mushi."

"Not at all," he said with a smile. "Sometimes people just need a helping hand to get along," he said. "And you seemed rather hungry to me!"

 **...**

"Thanks so much for your help!" Lily called as they left. "And good luck with your dream tea shop!"

"You know we'll have to pay them back someday," Lexi pointed out as soon as she turned back to the trail beside them.

"Of course," she said confidently. "I didn't have any intention of _not."_

"You're gonna have to remember where it is," Lexi muttered.

"... Shit."

"... Maybe as long as it's a straight shot to Konoha, we can just... backtrack?" Shane said.

"Actually, it pretty much is a straight shot to Konoha," Lexi cut in, glancing over the new map she'd been given technically by Lee, obviously by Mushi. "Not even half a day, tops."

"Awesommmee!" Lily sang.

They talked for a while about various things as they traveled. It wasn't until later, when the sun started to go down but way before it would set, that she brought up what had been nagging in the back of her mind.

"So, we're gonna be at Konoha soon," Lexi started. "We should probably, you know, work out a story for where we came from, what we're wearing-"

"Why there's no information on us, period," Lily agreed, then thought for a moment.

"You know, Konoha seems really nice and all, but it's kinda easy to forget- it's a ninja village," Shane mused. "A pretty powerful one too."

"I got it," Lily said triumphantly, smacking a fist in her palm. "We're part of a caravan of traveling traders, at least we were before our caravan got attacked by bandits, and we were separated. We were the ones who survived, and managed to defeat the last of them. And then I looted them out of spite. Flawless!"

"We could probably leave out that last part," Lexi mused.

"But then people are gonna ask where I got my random poison from," she whined. "What am I gonna say? I found it on the side of the road? I stole it from some random drug dealer?"

"You were selling it as a part of a traveling caravan of traders?" Lexi suggested dryly.

Lily paused. "... Yeah, that too. That sounds much more believable. And less suspicious."

"Okay, we need to make sure our stories are exactly the same between all three of us," Shane said. "Because that's how people get screwed up in TV shows."

"Where did we come from?" Lexi said curiously. "Orphans? Village no one really heard of? Wandering rogue nin?"

"You know, I would've said Suna, and then I remembered, I'm pale as fuck," Lily said, almost wistfully, and sighed. "And how pale you two are."

"That could've been easily figured out anyway," Lexi pointed out. "We might not know exactly where we are timeline-wise, but I'm pretty sure we're before the chuunin exams. Weren't they, like, at least tedious allies then? Before the crush thing I mean."

"When I said caravan, I was talking about gypsies."

"We could've been born that way?"

"Please don't bring Lady GaGa into this."

"Guys, seriously," Shane said, annoyed. "I don't feel like being sent to T&I."

...

Lynx had seen quite a few impostors, traitors and terrorists during his time on ANBU patrol, and he was pretty sure these kids were none of those three things, considering that they didn't seem even close to realizing they were being trailed.

Despite that, he and his partner, Sparrow, trailed them anyway, because occasionally they said extremely interesting things- and because half the time they weren't even speaking proper words, just strange sounds that sounded like pointless jabbering but which they responded to. A secret language? An unheard of one?

They chattered for a while, from what he could tell about some odd story about a caravan of traveling traders- a story? A movie?- but eventually, one of them said something _interesting_ that caught his attention in a bad, bad way.

"Lexi," the redheaded one said in a very serious tone. "No matter what the story is, you cannot, under any circumstances, let anyone else know you have Mokuton."

 _Wood Release?!_

Beside him, Sparrow signed, _Did she say what I think she said?_ in ANBU standard with a slightly nervous air.

"Yeah," the one supposedly with Wood Release agreed, just as nervously as Sparrow. "Orochimaru and all that jazz."

"That's the last thing we need to deal with," the boy agreed.

"Or Danzo," the redhead said suddenly. "Jesus Christ- or _Danzo."_

There was a general murmur of agreement and muted horror from the other two, and then they continued on their way. Lynx looked uncertainly at Sparrow, knowing the other ANBU trainee couldn't see his expression, and signed back, _Do we take them out or capture them?_

There was only a brief moment of hesitation before her reply. _Capture the one,_ and it was obvious who that 'one' was, _take out the others._

 **...**

There was a sudden ominous air in the trees. Lily couldn't exactly put her finger on it, but with her nerves shot and tired as hell, her paranoia had at the very least tripled, probably quadrupled with the sudden presence of murderous ninja around- she was going to trust her instincts on this one. She tensed, going up on her toes and looking around.

Lexi was the only of her two traveling companions to notice at first. "Lily? Something wrong?"

"I think someone's following us."

Lexi frowned, but before she could open her mouth to reply, there was a blur just over her shoulders that made absolutely no sense for a moment before suddenly, it was a person, wearing an unfamiliar but easily recognizable white, painted, uniform- oh _shit,_ she thought- _ANBU!_

And then, completely unexpectedly, with a flurry of hand seals she had practiced for at least a full month in preparation for Megacon along with memorizing the name, she brought her fingers up to her lips and yelled, "Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!" at the top of her lungs, and honestly, was pretty genuinely surprised at the blast of heat that singed her face and hands.

Lexi yelped and dove out of the way of the Great Fireball Technique as it barreled out of her mouth and into the ANBU ninja standing behind her. His form darkened with the flames and smoked instantly into nothing. The heat faded away with the flames.

There was a moment of shocked silence. Lexi righted herself on the ground. Shane stared at the little pile of scorch mark on the dirt.

"Ow," Lily said weakly.

"Well," Shane said slowly. "Congratulations. You've just officially become an Uchiha. How do you feel about that?"

Lily looked down at her red hands, horrified. "Like I just _fucking murdered_ someone," she shrilled.

"Lily," Lexi demanded, face ashen. "What the _heck-"_

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! It was the only jutsu I remembered the hand seals for!" she wailed.

"Well you didn't have to- roast him!"

"Well _I'm sorry,_ randomly this guy comes out of the blue with a sword in hand behind you, and for some _strange_ reason, I'm pretty sure he didn't want to sell us goddamn life insurance- I'm pretty sure it was _exactly_ the goddamned opposite! I just want things to make sense again, me driving in my Honda Accord, not trashed by an angsty not-cosplayer and be _going_ to Megacon and having a _joyous time!_ I just killed someone! How do you think I feel about that?! I'm- Oh. God. I'm tired."

Lily felt herself sway, oddly in the middle of a panic attack, once or twice, before collapsing.

 **...**

Lexi had never actually _seen_ someone have a panic attack, but she definitely knew they were a thing, and recognized every sign instantly- although it was pretty hard not to, she probably would've literally been stupid not to.

And it was expected, Lexi realized. She was paranoid without being jumped already by bandits and with the laws of _everything_ science and logical turned upside down. Of course she would freak out. She had just _killed_ a person.

But the passing out was a little unexpected.

"Chakra exhaustion?" Lexi suggested after a long three or four seconds staring at her lying on the ground.

"Me too," Shane muttered. "I think."

And before she could turn to see why he sounded so tired, there was another thud, and her eyes whipped to where he had just been standing to find him- _not_ standing anymore. Before she could think a full, concise thought, exhaustion suddenly yanked hard on her _everything_ like it hadn't since waking up in the Naruto-verse.

Everything went black.

...

Sparrow had watched Lynx barely dodge that completely unexpected fireball, surprisingly without taking any real damage save for a few singe marks on his new uniform, and had immediately reacted by shutting everyone down with a Genjutsu save for herself and her partner.

Now her partner, in an uncharacteristic bout of shock, was lying on his back on a thick tree branch, clutching a burn mark on his vest. Sparrow, from the ground, glanced from him back down to the three others lying unconscious on the ground.

Well, she thought. Taking them all in, I guess.

...

...

HEY GUYS GUESS WHO'S BAACCKK!

[Hides in fallout shelter to avoid angry viewers]

I'm sooo sorry that I took so long to update, and while I would LOVE too say that this will be a one time occurrence...

I get distracted

Very

Easily

If you want to see what I was doing instead of writing, check out my DeviantArt my username is onyx7576

So don't get your hopes up for a timely schedule with me.

I'm very curios as to how you will all react to this chapter, as you can guess pikapixiethedemigod and I spent a lot of time on this chapter.

And before you all send flames on how unrealistic our reactions are- I didn't make anything up, this is how we act most the time.

I reflexively punch in my sleep if something touches me(I almost punched my math teacher out once), my backpack is pretty much a DnD bag of holding (AKA a fucking black hole), my sense of smell is actually that good, I, on occasion will have a panic attack, and I am a very persuasive person-I'm going to law school for a reason after all.

Lexi does space out a lot and the whole staring at people thing happens, the waiter restaurant thing actually happened like, two days ago.

Speaking of the teashop how many of you got the reference.

Anyways happy 2016 yall!

Please review!


	3. T&I And I Am So Sorry

**We keep forgetting to add this. We may own ourselves, and any _OC's_ we choose to include, but the rest belongs to Masashi Kishimoto, our Lord and savior. Naruto for president! Because- actually no, never mind, I don't wanna put political leanings I wonder who's president at this point?**

 **...**

No amount of words could even _begin_ to describe the emotion maelstrom coursing through her veins- or maybe she could.

First and foremost: _rage._

A supernova would have trouble competing with the white hot fury Lily felt when she woke up, _in a motherfucking prison cell!_ Oh by the gods, if she ever saw that Uchiha shit-heel again, he was gonna die. Not just beat the shit outta him, like she would seriously murder him. _Well at least try to_.

Fear that ran so cold the void of space would seem warm—blinding panic that sent her brain on overdrive. How long had she been out? Were they at T&I or _Danzo's_ T&I? Was there even a plural in the last thought? Where were her friends? Were they alive? How would they all get out of here?

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. _Calm down._

She needed to think, _rationally_ , panic had no place in a rational mind.

Taking in her surroundings, Lily reasoned that this was most likely not a _torture_ and interrogation room, but more so a holding cell that doubled as an interrogation room. How did she know this? For starters, the size of the room was too small for any complex forms of torture such as water boarding- but granted, having ninjutsu at your disposal might make such methods obsolete.

Two, the room had no signs of previous tortures, like blood; which were usually left so far as she knew to instill fear in the current prisoner. Thirdly, she wasn't exactly, you know, _gagged and bound to a chair_.

In fact, she was on a 'bed', to use the term loosely; because a Tatami mat draped over a plywood cot did not constitute as a bed, not to her anyways. She was used to a comfy queen sized bed, with feather pillows, and as many blankets as she wanted.

 _Like the spoiled little shit she is._

In addition to the shitty bed, there was also a large metal table with two matching metal chairs, one on each side, in the middle of the room, probably for the impending interrogation that she was sure to endure at some point.

Taking a quick whiff of the air, she was assaulted with the unmistakable damp musty odor of mold; coupled with the chill of the room, she was willing to bet that she was underground. She wasn't entirely sure, maybe like, eighty five percent... ish.

She had been thoroughly searched for any weapons; her pocketknives–don't judge- one was a Swiss army knife- the other was for self defense- her kunai, pencils, _everything_ had been pilfered _._ Not even her combat boots had been spared; how had they known about her boot throwing tendencies? Lily didn't know.

They didn't take her belt, though, which was good; she could at the very least attempt to whip the shit outta them.

Logically she would not be able to escape, she was surrounded by shinobi, she was untrained, and her friends were essentially being held hostage.

 _Hopefully._

 _Yah…_

She was pretty much fucked.

…

When she woke up, she was momentarily extremely disappointed.

There was the ceiling, not a tree canopy or stars or Lily or Shane. She was lying on a bed, not grass or painful tree roots.

Lexi had always dreamed that way; waking up disappointed in the reality of an alarm clock going off at six in the morning and more than a few assignments piled up due that day she hadn't even started. A whole book's worth of plot and action in a dream she only remembered for half an hour at the most, and then back to boring meaningless life...

She blinked. Blinked again. The ceiling was different than her bedroom at home- there was no bunk bed; she could actually see the ceiling. Hope flared and then, oh, _wait-_ Hotel. Megacon. She was in a hotel.

This bed sucked.

She sat up, yawned, and stretched her hands over her head. The bed made an odd sound, creaking and cracking like a rotted old house. _What do I remember of my dream?_ she wondered as she wiped her face. _I was in the Naruto-verse. We hit Obito with a car. Tea-house._ Hadn't Lily killed someone...?

Lexi froze, fingers just sliding away from her eyes.

Shit. Not a hotel.

Cell.

She was in a small room lying on a bed and there was a toilet and there were _bars instead of doors._

For maybe half a second or so, she was terrified. Reality-verse thoughts invaded at first: _ohmygod we got arrested for some reason I'm in prison and they called my parents and my dad's gonna kill me and say he was right about being tagged at Megacon I'm gonna diiieee!_ But then, despite the wheeze and single heartbeat thump that throbbed in her chest in the time it took her to panic, Lexi noticed a few things.

She was alone. Like, seriously alone, and it was dead silent to boot. And the bed wasn't a bed at all: it was a thick Tatami mat draped on a rise of something; probably a rectangle of wood. She'd been in a prison before- visiting her older brother, on elementary school field trips, surfing the Internet. This didn't look like any kind of prison she'd ever seen.

Any kind of _American_ prison.

She smiled and let out something like a relieved sigh, hoping there weren't any cameras around to prove that she was happy to be in a prison. And the dream wasn't fading away- they'd been attacked- and then she'd gotten tired, really, really tired, on the spot, and fainted. So it wasn't a dream: it was a _memory._ She'd been put under, and considering the lack of stings and pains anywhere on her body, she'd go out on a limb and say it was _Genjutsu._

Wicked.

So she was in a Naruto-verse prison. Okay.

 _... Why?_

It didn't matter. First things first, she had to find out where Lily and Shane were, and make sure that this was a Konoha prison and not anything else- it probably was, they'd been so close and oh _shoot,_ they were probably in T&I for real. They hadn't gotten their story straight! What was it again? A caravan of traveling merchants? They'd been attacked and were the sole survivors. Were they orphans? Lexi couldn't remember.

This was probably going to be an issue if they got interrogated separately.

Her spine straightened so quickly with a shock that she actually jumped up off the mat to her feet, poised like she would start to pace. _Yamanakas!_

Before she got her hands all the way to her face for an agonized theatrical groan, she paused at the light sound of heavy footsteps, like if her father walked across carpet. Except- there wasn't any carpet, in or outside the cell, so far as she could tell from the flickering fly-spotted bulb of light above her head. She looked up at the cell bars curiously, hands still up, and up walked-

Big and burly and surly and scarred with a black and grey color palette-

Up walked _Morino Ibiki._

"You're-" she rattled off before her mind got ahold of her mouth- _"Morino Ibiki!"_

And he gave her a flat stare, coming to a stop outside her cell.

And she realized she wasn't supposed to know that.

"I mean- uh-" she floundered, arms crossing over her chest. "I- have no idea who you are?"

In her head, she cursed. _That totally didn't sound suspicious at all._

"Hm," Ibiki said.

"I might've seen you in a Bingo Book," Lexi corrected herself quickly, going for a look that was meant to look flighty and scared and probably only came out nervous. "While we were traveling around. This- this means I'm in T&I, aren't I?"

It wasn't long before they were both seated at the tiny metal table, across from each other, in the only two chairs in the room. The bars had been locked again by someone she couldn't see in the dark between the distraction that was Ibiki and the dawning realization that she was, in fact, in T&I.

It was awkward- probably only for her; Ibiki looked calm and cool as a cucumber. Probably because she was physically like eleven and he wasn't concerned in the slightest. But it was kind of impressive, she was staring-and-trying-not-to-stare at his face and the scars that marred it and he didn't even seem to be the least bit offended.

Well, they probably worked for his intimidation factor, anyways.

His face was blurrier than Lexi would have liked. Well, everything was. She needed new glasses.

"You three have caused quite the commotion for our Intelligence," he said really suddenly, and she blinked.

"Oh, yeah," she said. "Where are my friends?"

"Answer all my questions and you _might_ see them again," he said in a low way, threatening, but Lexi wasn't too worried because she'd been thinking about this and he didn't actually have any ground to have even kidnapped them in the first place, let alone actually hurt them. For all he knew they were some political head's kids.

"That doesn't really make me want to talk to you," she pointed out. "You kidnapped _me,_ remember? I haven't even done anything yet. I mean wait. I won't."

Nice.

Before she could sigh at her own stupid mouth, Ibiki spoke again. "Your compliance isn't necessary," he said. Man, his voice was rough. "I will get my answers, one way or another."

Instead of scared, her mind was stupid and felt amused at a thought. She still thought for a second before she spoke, though, and remembered Lily's Japanese name, or what she'd said it was, anyway. "Have you actually talked to Yuri yet?"

"I will assume that that is your female companion?"

"Then no. You would know. Please say that to her- see how that works out for you."

"So she's a stubborn type, then?"

Lexi shrugged. "Depends on how you ask the questions, I guess." She paused. "But, um, yeah. That's one way to put it."

"Interesting." He was looking a little annoyed, now, but he technically hadn't even asked a question yet, so it wasn't like she wasn't cooperating.

She hesitated for a second, watched his face, to make sure she hadn't accidentally said that out loud. When he said nothing, she internally sighed with relief. Because no, that would be really bad.

"Back on topic. First question- what is your name?"

"L-" she started, and then coughed slightly and said, "Um, Hikari." Shoot, she couldn't remember the surname. Something about stones?

"And your surname?"

"Um," she said again. Stony field, that's what her last name meant, according to Lily. And then suddenly, for no reason, she remembered the Japanese for Stony Field like she spoke it- Iwabokujo. She repeated it out loud, after probably too much time had passed, but oh well. She was already probably screwed. Lexi was just happy she'd finally remembered the name.

"I've never heard that name before," Ibiki said, and from the drab tone in his voice she knew he'd caught her obvious hesitation. Who forgot their own name? "Where are you from?"

 _Crap._ They hadn't figured this out yet. A small village they hadn't heard of? Another Land? No, not another land, that was stupid. Diversion, diversion. "Same place as anyone, I guess," she said vaguely, not really even knowing what that even meant. "We're all the same, you know?"

That was so stupid.

Apparently she was a hippie now. Or a philosopher. Whatever it was, she was stuck with it now.

Ibiki's right eyebrow shot into his headscarf, and Lexi felt a twinge of inappropriate jealously. It seemed like everyone could lift one eyebrow but her. Except now he probably thought she was an idiot. Or high. Did people get high here?

"Does this have anything to do with your companions mentioning wood release?"

"Wow, topic change," she said, and then wanted to smack herself because she'd meant to _think_ that. Now that she'd said it, though, she was rolling with it, because she didn't really want to answer _that,_ either. How had he even known about that? Wait, they'd been ambushed. Had one of them said it where the spies could hear? "What does that have to do with coming from nowhere?"

She should've just said she was from a caravan.

Ibiki said nothing, just staring at her with blank eyes that were probably meant to be just as unnerving as they were.

"There have only been two people in this world who possessed Wood Release," he said at last. "One of them is dead, and the other is top secret. Which one of those are you?"

Hopefully not the dead one, she thought, even while her mind supplied, Hashirama and Yamato. "Who says I'm either of those? Dude, Wood Release's been dead for years. Except wait, did you just say top secret? Aren't all the Senju dead?"

Ignorant, ignorant, curious. I don't even know who Tsunade is. Turn the question around, she thought. Look at me, I'm clueless, and you just gave me classified information.

The face Ibiki made after that was very hard to describe, something new she was pretty sure was a cross between human primordial rage and frustration and emotion suppression training. "We will continue this session later," he said, and he was probably trying to make it sound ominous, but Lexi just held back a burst of laughter, and also trying not to pass out from this huge rush of disbelief, because that just worked and she'd just outwitted the greatest mental interrogator alive.

And then he stood, and she watched him leave, tacked on a, "Wait, does Wood Release still _exist?"_

The barred doors slammed a little harder than she thought was necessary.

When he was gone, footsteps fading, she let herself grin, but didn't let herself laugh, because she would sound simultaneously crazy and suspicious.

He hadn't even met Lily or Shane yet.

…

If they ever got out of this place alive, Shane was never going to let them live this down. They could be like eighty and he would still be like 'hey, remember that time you guys got us thrown in T&I?'. Then Lexi would be like 'Shane, that was like seventy years ago, just drop it!' and at the same time, Lily would get up out of her rocking chair and stab him with a knitting needle. He was pretty sure Lily knitted; she was like the crafting guru and her house looked like a tornado had hit it after running through Hobby Lobby.

Yes, that was exactly how it would happen.

Assuming they all got out of here alive, or even lived that long.

But all fantasies aside, it would be best to focus on the here and now; for example: _where the fuck was he?!_ This of course was a rhetorical question, because he was almost positive that he was in T &I, _hence the previous thought process above._

[Shane stop breaking the fourth wall.]

[My POV, my rules.]

[I'm the one sending this to Kishimoto, you ass!]

[Guys, focus!]

So T&I torture and interrogation, fun…

Honestly he wasn't even gonna freak out right now, because he was completely beyond that point. That ship had sailed when Lily ran an Anime character over with her car. He snorted a bit at the thought: Lily's car- 1, Obito Uchiha- 0. But then again, he'd destroyed her car, so it was a tie now.

He was in a cell. A small room with grey stone walls covered in way too much mold, thinly placed bars instead of doors, and a stupid ticking clock. He'd been lying on an uncomfortable wood bed with a mat on top, like that would make it any more comfortable. Now he was sitting on one of the metal chairs in the middle, which weren't really any better than the bed but the bed probably had smallpox or something.

Did they even have smallpox in the Naruto verse?

That was something Lily would say, Shane mused. He wondered if she was awake yet. Probably... their cells definitely weren't near each other.

He was pissed as hell because they'd taken his phone. Now how was he supposed to pass the time? And he couldn't even be snarky at whoever came in, because they'd probably kill him, with his shit luck. He'd used to have pretty good luck, in his opinion. And then he'd met Lily.

... And things had pretty much gone downhill from there.

He straightened from his bored slouch at the light sound of footsteps. He'd read hundreds of fanfictions in his life, and in most of them, you couldn't hear a ninja's footsteps. Did they just not think he was important enough to hide from? Well, screw them too.

That, or everything in fanfictions was totally a lie and he didn't know anything about this universe anymore. Canon could not even be real at this point; Obito hadn't come to their world and gotten hit by Lily's car in the manga. _Shit._

"If you keep thinking so hard, your hair might catch on fire."

"Screw you too, Lily," Shane said automatically, because Lord knows how many times she'd said that to him, and it took a second before he realized that hadn't even been close to Lily's voice. And so he looked up, and fuck it _all,_ because he'd just said screw you to Morino Ibiki.

Well, he was dead.

"Your beds suck."

…

 _Tick_

So it had been about maybe an hour and a half since she woke up- actually, it was almost certainly about an hour and a half. How did she know this?

 _Tock_

Because of the motherfucking cameraclock on the wall.

 _Tick_

It was mocking her, she just knew it, with its abnormally loud ticking.

 _Tock_

She wasn't even _sure_ if the clock was a video camera, but she was _almost_ positive it was.

 _Tick_

Because every good CIA cell had a camera somewhere, and T&I was pretty much ninja CIA, along with ANBU, and Intelligence.

 _Tock_

You know what? Ninjas are all just magical CIA agents.

 _Tick_

Or maybe she was just paranoid, this was also likely and even more so since she hasn't exactly taken her meds in over three days, _at least_.

 _Tock_

And she may or may not have been going through withdrawals right then.

 **Tick**

Her eyes squinted harshly.

 **Tock**

Her left eyebrow twitched.

 **Tick**

"That's it!" she said with utmost finality, nearly knocking the metal chair over as she swiftly stood up and stomped over to the source of the infernal ticking noise. "That clock's gonna fucking die!"

Just as she was about to bat the clock off the wall, her ears picked up the sound of footsteps; almost certainly male, heavy build, sure personality, slightly irrita- _he's unlocking the door I should probably sit down._

Scrambling to her seat as fast she could, Lily could barely hold back a curse as she saw just who walked through the door.

Bandana style Konoha headband, black trench coat, tan scarred skin, tall as fuck.

No doubt about it, this was Morino Ibiki, also known as the current head of T&I.

 _Also known as I'm so screwed right now._

She sat up straighter, trying to look as professional as possible as he pulled up the chair across from her; he gave her a pointed glare and leaned forward slightly before speaking.

"I am Morino Ibiki, and if you know what's good for you, you will answer all of my questions." he growled out with a do-not-fuck-with-me tone. Christ, he was intimidating, but she had her priorities straight, and if he thought that she was just gonna comply without getting _her_ answers, he had another thing coming.

 _Lawyer mode activate._

Positioning her body to bolt out of the chair if needed, she rested her chin on her left hand, keeping the right one in front of her. Looking him straight in the eye with a stone cold pokerface she replied, "Very well, however before we begin I will ask you to inform me of the status of my two companions."

For a split second he looked very surprised, before narrowing his eyes and leaning over her, which wasn't hard seeing as thought he was like over six feet.

Seriously, it was criminal how tall he was. "No need to get so aggressive, it would be in your best interest just to tell me. Because then I would be compliant, and save you the time of interrogating me."

"So, this is what they meant," he said vaguely, and Lily realized he was probably talking about Lexi and Shane. Seriously? she thought. They had mentioned her? That was like the number one thing about interrogation- you didn't mention your friends, didn't give any indication that they meant anything to you, because then they could be used as leverage.

"Ah, so you've talked to them," she said. "Still haven't answered my question. Are my friends," she said slowly, "Okay?"

[I didn't know it at this point in time, but I unintentionally used Killer Intent. Granted it was pretty mild.]

[Hypocrite!]

[ _My_ POV- my rules.]

She'd thought maybe he would get angry, or at the very least annoyed, but to her surprise, he made a face that suggested he wanted to just sigh obnoxiously loudly and then leave. Interesting, she thought. Unexpected, but interesting.

She waited, pulling her scarf up to her mouth to mask her smirk.

"Your friends are unharmed," Ibiki said, like it took great effort to spit out the words.

Lily gave him a once-over to see if he was lying. But from his body language and actual sigh, he obviously wasn't. "Now that we've gotten that out of the way, since I'm sure you were going to ask anyway, my name is Sekitanmizu Yuri."

Lily knew her and her friends' names in Japanese flawlessly. One, because she'd been curious and looked them up, and two, because she knew calligraphy and signed her artwork in Japanese like a fucking weaboo.

"We have the name. So where are you from, then?"

"Not the Land of Fire," she said cheerfully. Ibiki didn't necessarily make a face, but she got the impression that he wanted to punch something. Probably her.

There was a few seconds' pause. "That was probably the straightest answer I've gotten," he said, way too calmly.

"I try."

"In the ANBU's report, you were quoted to have mentioned Mokuton- concerning your... friend, Hikari." he said.

Lily immediately felt her face shift, and made a noise in the back of her throat equal to a wail. "I didn't mean to kill him!" she babbled, then paused. "Or her. Kind of hard to tell. But he came at me with a sword! Or her. Well, at Hikari. It was the only jutsu I know!"

Something like surprise flitted over Ibiki's face, but then it disappeared. "You didn't kill him," he said passively.

"Oh, thank God," Lily breathed, grabbing at her shirt. Then she actually thought for a second, because yes, she was pretty sure she remembered someone burning to ashes. "Oh, right- Substitution Jutsu. Honestly I should've known that. It would've been a _very_ different smell," she added.

...

Her entire conversation had basically consisted of Ibiki asking questions, and her giving him vague but technically true answers, and him getting progressively more irritable and done with life. Or just with her. All in all, she felt pretty accomplished.

Eventually, she had demanded to see her friends, and surprisingly, Ibiki hadn't even protested. He'd actually looked a little relieved. Probably at not having to deal with her for another five minutes. So now here she was, standing in front of them in a room, with Ibiki just standing there like he had nothing else to do.

As much as she wanted to lunge at them and hug them, she wasn't an idiot. These were probably just henged- whoever the fuck worked for Ibiki.

Lily stepped cautiously closer until they were only a few feet from each other. And then she said, in complete seriousness, the most obvious thing she could've: "Sing the Attack on Titan theme song."

"I don't know it," Lexi said immediately, frowning.

"Soul Eater, then," she demanded.

"Um... Black Paper Moon?"

"Who's Percy Jackson's fath-"

"Poseiden."

"Okay, you're L-Hikari," she decided, and then turned to Shane. "As much as it is unlikely that one of you is real and the other one is fake, Shane, explain the plot of RWBY."

"People with awesome weapons destroying things and being awesome," Shane demurred, and then frowned. "Damn it, you won't ever be able to cosplay Ruby now!" And she'd forgotten how badly he'd wanted that.

"Okay, you're _definitely_ Sha'ne," she said, emphasizing parts of his stupid nontranslatable name to sound more Japanese. "Now get over here so I can squeeze the life out of you."

"Wait, um," Lexi said. "Who's your OC in my story?"

"Satomi," she answered, and Lexi smiled a relieved grin.

"You're probably Yuri," Shane said faux-seriously. "Otherwise Ibiki wouldn't look nearly this pissed off."

"So was there any other point to this?" Ibiki said dryly. "Or did you all just want to be locked up together?"

Lexi looked at her, questioning, and Lily nodded. "Yeah, about that," she ventured, and Lily was a little surprised she hadn't been the one to say it, because apparently Lexi wasn't shy when it was anime characters she was talking to. "We need to see the Hokage."

"I'm sorry?" Ibiki said gruffly, clearly thinking he'd misheard them.

"We need to see the Hokage," Lily repeated before Lexi got the chance- before Hikari got the chance. "I'm going to be frank. What I need to tell him is of the utmost importance and I can't have any chance of it getting to unwanted ears. You've probably read in your report our knowledge of both Orochimaru and Danzo, as well as mention of Wood Release. This will all be explained- but not to you."

There was a really, really heavy silence, but Lily cut him off before he could even begin to speak.

"And honestly," she said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes, "if you think us three, a couple of kids, could pose a threat to your Hokage- then you need to get a new Hokage. And change some things in here."

...

The first words out of the Hokage's mouth were, "So, these are the three that have been stirring things up in T&I."

It was hard to tell if the older man was amused or not.

"Okay, so, I'm gonna not beat around the bush here, but I need everyone to leave except for you. And that includes any number of ANBU you have here- I'm gonna guess four." There was an audible noise, an intake of breath from nowhere. Lily pointed. "And that one's new."

She was pretty sure that this was chakra that was suddenly bearing down on her shoulders- just a guess.

He somehow still seemed to sound pleasant as he said, "And why should I do that?"

I can't breathe, she thought. I can't breathe- can't breathe- grow a pair! Lily chastised herself. But the panic was there- it would've been even without her Paranoid OCD kicking in. She needed her meds back.

Lily took a deep breath. Let it out.

"... Are you aware of the Butterfly Effect?"

Suddenly his eyes seemed to light up with some kind of understanding, which was strange because was he assuming they were from the future or something just like that? Eh, he already has a magical all-seeing crystal ball. Probably nothing new to him.

He probably gave some kind of signal, and there was some kind of rush like- well, the ANBU fucking left.

At both sides of her, Shane and Lexi waited silently, Lexi nervously, hands twisting together, Shane impatiently, arms crossed. Thank you for not interjecting and ruining everything, you two, she thought fondly.

"Good. Now that they're gone, I need you to swear that this stays between us. Swear on everything you hold dear- your very soul, your village. Whatever you would never forsake."

"You're quite serious about this, aren't you?" Hiruzen questioned, fingers steepling. He had a pipe on his desk, obviously unlit, a few stacks of paper that looked boring as hell. He looked just like he did in the anime and manga alike- white Hokage uniform, tanned skin from years in the Land of Fire, strange wrinkles under his eyes.

"This is a very serious issue we're going to talk about right now," she agreed.

"If it's as serious as you are implying," he said slowly. "Then I swear."

Lily sighed in relief. Step one out of the way. She took a moment to collect her thoughts, trying to figure out the exact wording. "To put it simply: we're not from here. And by not from here, I mean not from this world. Which is why we couldn't exactly say where we were from, because wherever we said wouldn't exactly exist. Due to undesirable circumstances, somebody with space-time abilities managed to transport themselves to our world, and through- accidental circumstances, managed to drag us along. The cherry on top- we know the future. Or at least, one future. Which is why I referred to the Butterfly Effect."

She could feel the surprise from both of her friends. They hadn't really had time to discuss this, but oh well, it was all on the table now.

Hiruzen, at first, didn't react, but about halfway through the speech his face went stony blank, and she thought maybe he'd just shut down trying to process. It was a little longer than a few seconds before he spoke again.

"I see," he said carefully. "And why on Earth should I believe you?"

"Uchiha family massacre," Shane said almost immediately. "We know the truth."

Palpable shock.

Processing.

"Are you _fucking mental?"_ Lily hissed in disbelief. Lexi said, _"Shane!"_ And Hiruzen said nothing at all.

"Anyway," Lexi said after a second, "That doesn't really prove anything, Shane, they already think we're spies or something, maybe we just got the information somewhere."

"Pretty sure Itachi- wait, no, he still cares more about Sasuke." Lily frowned. "But still, what the fuck are we supposed to do to get that information? And it's not like we were there- and even if we were, we were toddlers at that time. Yes, a bunch of toddlers got away from the Uchiha prodigy ANBU captain. That makes _so_ much sense."

"There's a file," Lexi disagreed. "Sasuke gets a file, remember?"

"We _just came to the village,"_ Lily stressed. "Maybe Naruto can break into the Hokage Tower, but that's only because he used the frickin' Flash The Hokage no Jutsu!"

Clearly wanting to stop this conversation before it got out of hand- because oh yeah, he'd probably never told that to anyone- the Hokage put up a hand, distress and shock and confusion written all over his face.

"Believe us now?" Shane said sarcastically. "Because I'm pretty sure you made sure nobody else but you knows that."

"... Yes," Hiruzen said tiredly. "... If only just."

"Kay, now that that's out of the way," Lily said. "You can probably figure out why we don't exactly want to tell you _everything_ that's going to happen, because if one thing changes then another thing will change and another thing will change and eventually the world will literally end, and I'm not even exaggerating. It almost happens anyway."

"And why should I trust the word of a bunch of kids? What makes you think that you can handle the future?"

"Actually, we're not kids," Lily disagreed.

"Actually, me and Shane are still kids," Lexi interrupted. "Technically."

"You're eighteen, it's close enough, I'm nineteen, it's close enough," Lily said flippantly. "You guys can vote."

"We de-aged," Shane said bluntly. "We're not even sure how. It just kinda happened. We got chakra, too- oh, and that's another thing, there's no chakra in our world." His eyes shifted, almost annoyed, to Lexi, who smiled almost sheepishly. "But somehow Lexi hit the proverbial jackpot and ended up with Wood Release."

"And that's why we came to Konoha, and only Konoha," Lily said.

"Hikari," Lexi reminded Shane.

And Lily paused, frowned in thought. Lexi _meant_ Hikari. Why did it even matter? And wait, how had Ibiki even noticed the difference? Why had 'Lexi' been so jarring?

Lexi and Shane continued to go back and forth, and now that she was really paying attention- really focusing- and how had they even remembered their names, anyway, they never had before- and why hadn't she had issues with her Japanese earlier?- she noticed it.

They were speaking Japanese.

Lexi didn't know how to speak Japanese, and Shane had never been nearly that fluent.

Screw it, never mind, she thought, turning back to the topic at hand. This is important. I'll deal with that later. "To put it simply, it's best if very few people know about this. By few, I mean only you. And us."

Please work, Lily prayed, Please work, please work, I don't wanna die today, I don't wanna die.

"I don't know if I can trust you," the Hokage said at last. "You are young, and you are strangers. And you cannot seem strange here to the people of Konoha. Swear your allegiance to this village," he finished.

"I swear on my soul," Lily said, sensing the importance, placing a hand over her chest.

And then Lexi smiled like an idiot. "Legally?" she said hopefully. "Please, please tell me we're becoming ninjas of Konoha. Please."

"I'm pretty sure that's the only option," Lily said at the same time as Shane.

"Unfortunately," Hiruzen said, "Yes. We need to keep a close eye on you." Here he paused. "Since you never officially graduated from a Ninja Academy, I cannot give you the official title of Genin. However, the Chuunin Exams are approaching. By participating in these- if you are failed- you will technically be Genin, and if you pass, I suppose you would be Chuunin. I can give you the unofficial status of Genin until that point."

He paused, and Shane looked satisfied, Lexi more and more excited like she had been when they first woke up in this crazy place. Lily, in the meantime, felt like she might pass out.

"And since you three and Ibiki have already been introduced..." the Hokage continued, and Lily paled. _Oh, no, no,_ she thought, _we are not ninjas, we are not ninjas!_ As cool as this is, we are not ninjas, and we're gonna fucking die! "I suppose you need an unofficial Jonin Sensei."

...

Ibiki was waiting patiently outside the Hokage's office door.

Those kids, he thought, were something else, and not at all in a good way. They were loud, they were irritating, and they had secrets. One after the other, rapid fire interrogations, hearing a lot of words but no actual answers. In one word: frustrating.

The door opened. Ibiki eased out of his thoughts, eyes darting to see who came out.

First, it was the redheaded child- Sekitanmizu Yuri. And then the boy, Sha'ne. They both had troubled looks on their faces. No guard escorted them. Both stopped, one after the other, and stared at him uncomfortably for a second.

And then the third child, Iwabokujo Hikari, came through the door, and she looked ecstatic, floating like she would start skipping. She grinned at him, eyes closed, and said cheerfully, "Hi, Sensei!" before continuing on past her companions with a little wave.

The boy smacked himself. "Well, that's one way to tell him," he muttered.

Yuri looked at him apologetically and said, in one of the most sincere tones he had ever heard, "I am _so_ sorry you have to deal with us." And then she paused. Lifted a piece of paper toward his face. "Can you tell us where this apartment is, though?"

 **...**

 **..**

 **Redhead would like to say: Goddammit, I'm so tired.**

 **Hey, guys! I know it's been a while since she managed to post- not quite as long as last time, but a while- but we got it done! And how about that, huh? Ibiki's our sensei! And I'm probably too happy about that. Oops.**

 **Red: That poor man. He has to deal with me and Shane. Also, random announcement: I got accepted to my dream college! It's a law school, fyi, that's why I say 'lawyer mode activate' I know what I'm talking about- don't call me a mary sue (even though I am in real life) in this future!au, I would be in law school already.**

 **Lexi: So Lily does have Paranoid OCD. But as for me and my eyesight- well, it sucks. And since we de-aged, my body reverted to an earlier state. I can see better- but I need an older prescription, so I still can't see well. I also have this really annoying hiccup thing that will show up around the beginning of shippuuden by reckoning of age- at fourteen, a verbal tic that's super loud and has, literally, been mistaken for a pterodactyl.**

 **Lily's, um, super tired, making up lyrics and acting like a cat, so she'll probably edit and post this tomorrow! Hope you liked it and Review!**

 **Lily: I am Madame Trash, and I will read you Trashy Future. (I think she's talking to me)**


End file.
